Workshop 3: translating research and innovation into jobs and growth

Innovation is widely considered a primary driver of economic growth. The new EU programme for research and innovation – Horizon2020 – is conceived to make a stronger push for innovation as contributor to growth and jobs in Europe.

The workshop aims to shed light on crucial ingredients of the innovation process. How can organisations – governmental, industry, academic - turn ICT research results and innovation into competitiveness and growth in Europe? The morning session will focus on models of transfer of research and innovation to the market. The afternoon session will focus on the level of maturity needed for evolving ICT technologies to fill in the gap from research to product manufacturing.

The participants will debate questions such as: What does it take to create a company out of research results? Do our models of valorisation of R&I and transfer of technology fit with the acceleration of innovation uptake by the market? How to speed up the impact of the public money invested on innovation and growth? How to bridge the "valley of death"? How to accelerate the transfer of research and innovation to the market?

Next 25th October will take place in Brussels the seminar: Taking innovation to the market: 10 actions to make it happen, that follows up to the Digital Agenda Assembly workshop 3 -Translating research and

One of the main issues attracting discussion so far is accelerating technology transfer. It seems that the EU innovation ecosystem should substantially improve its performances when it comes to bringing research results to the market.

Today, innovation processes are becoming the more and more permeable to the environment, as knowledge and IP is more easily transferred inside and outside a company. Behind this reality emerge the concept of open innovation.

Opposite views seems to emerge when it comes to accelerate tech transfer in Europe. User-led innovation, bottom-up innovation, living labs etc. are just a part of a long list of ways to try to better align R&D carried by industry with user's needs (potential consumers).